Breaking the Sky
by more-than-melody
Summary: It was a bad winter that year. "You said your father is sick?" he asked. Before Riza's father dies. RoyxRiza, Royai


Disclaimer: FMA isn't mine. :(

Song: Day of Rain - Thriving Ivory

_I guess winter got the best of us this year..._

* * *

It was a bad winter that year. Frost glittered on bare tree-branches, snow drifted thickly against the sides of buildings, obscuring windows from sight. Side roads were often impassable, as well as some of the more traveled ones. Children worked shoveling driveways until the light faded from the sky all to early and they were called inside, leaving the shovels to be buried beneath the snow in the night. Faerie frost etched across windowpanes, with loops and whorls and flowers that were impossible to imitate.

The train ride was a long and vaguely unpleasant one. The old man sitting next to him snored and drooled and slept most of the ride, and when he woke, he was grumpy and seemed to think that it was necessary to grumble about how 'young people these days don't know how good they've got it' at every opportunity." He watched the icy countryside slide past his window, like some obscure slide show that held a hidden meaning he couldn't guess. His daydreams alternated back and forth, always the same scene, played out in a hundred different ways. In one, Riza greeted him happily, the familiar smile on her face, much the same as she had been two years ago, when he had left. In the others, she was as cold and distant as the landscape flying by, all too much like her father.

The three hours from Central flew by, and he was exiting onto the station platform all too soon for his liking. It was still a good four hours up into the mountains to reach the house he had once called home, and since it was nearly seven already, he decided against calling her. It could wait until the morning. He spent the night in a cheap motel four and a half blocks from the train station, his two suitcases lying unopened by the door.

The room had seen better days, with peeling wallpaper and a single, dusty yellow bulb hanging from the ceiling. The glass that had once surrounded it was gone, broken or maybe it had never been there in the first place. There was a double bed in one corner, a chest of drawers that smelled of cheap perfume and the quilt on the bed smelled like cigarette smoke. There was a single, grubby window that overlooked a street that was crowded with people, even at midnight. Normally he wouldn't have lowered himself to sleeping in such a place, but it was late and he was tired and after counting the bills in his wallet, he decided that cheap was good.

Sleep eluded him for several hours, until he fell a sleep watching a spider spin its web in the corner, the quilt wrapped around him as though it could keep the morning at bay.

The next morning arrived far too early, the sun penetrating the thick glass panes of the window. The light shed on his surroundings made the room look even more shabby. It illuminated the spider web of cracks that traced along one wall, the water stains on the ceiling and the faint traces of floorboards that picked through the threadbare carpet. Though he wasn't hungry he forced himself to eat and ended up purchasing a warm blueberry muffin from the bakery two doors down.

He found a telephone booth across the street, the black paint on the frame chipped in places to reveal the cold metal beneath. He rubbed his hands together to get the blood flowing back through them before reaching out to pick up the cold, black telephone. He paused a second to steady himself, then dialed the number flawlessly, as he had so many times since he'd left, always hanging up as soon as it rang the first time. Sometimes it didn't ring. But he wasn't hanging up this time. He would never be able to forgive himself if he did. He tried to reason with himself unsuccessfully. There was no reason he should be afraid, nervous to talk to them, surely. Even so, he couldn't deny the fact that his mouth was dry or that his palms had begun to sweat.

Wiping his hands futilely on the thick, warm fabric of his coat he waited for that telltale sound, the first whirring in his ear that told him the call had connected. Just when it seemed that it would never come, that the silence had stretched too long and he feared he would be forced to return home empty handed because they hadn't paid the phone bill on time that month, or the month before, it came. The small, tinny ringing in his ear that sent relief flooding through him. He waited anxiously for the second ring, but it didn't come. It was her voice in his ear instead.

"Hello?" So serious sounding, but it was her, he was sure of that. He found himself unable to speak. "Hello?" she asked again, a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat, then forced his lips to form her name.

"Riza?" His voice sounded weak, unused. And perhaps it was. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken more than enough to get by. No sound from her end of the phone. He found his voice again. "Riza, it's...it's Roy." The soft hiss of her breath was enough to let him know she was surprised.

"Oh." Not exactly the reaction he was hoping for, but considering the circumstances, he couldn't hope for more.

He took a deep breath. "I need a favor." She sighed, the sound coming through faint, laced with static.

"Of course. What do you want?" Her voice sounded resigned, even through the tinny quality of the telephone line. He felt a faint smile curl up the corners of his mouth.

"I need a ride." He could almost see her, the faint worry line between her brows as she tried to puzzle out exactly what he was saying, trying to see the trap in his words.

"A ride? But..."

"I'm in Freoé." He wished he could see the look on her face. "I took a train in last night." Her reaction was unexpected. She let out a long, heart rending sigh, then took a deep breath.

"Look Roy. Father's sick. I can't just take off at a moments notice." He felt his chest deflate, the frail hope that she might be glad to hear from him punctured. He should have thought of something like this. Should have called sooner, asked her when he could come...But no. He hadn't given it a second thought, thought that she would be able to drop everything, whatever life she had now for him.

As though she could sense his disappointment, she gave another small sigh and spoke again. "I suppose Father can handle a few hours on his own. I'll leave in an hour. Can you meet me at the train station at..." There was a slight pause in which he knew she was checking the time on the clock. "How about three thirty?" Despite himself he felt himself grin, his mouth stretching across his face in a rare expression.

"That sounds great." And really, it did. It was what he'd expected, but it was more than he deserved. There was an awkward pause.

"I guess I'll see you then," she said, her voice sounding strange in his ear. Something was slightly off, but he couldn't tell what.

Wishing that the conversation didn't have to come to an end, but at a loss for how to extend it, he sighed. "All right." There was another pause before he heard the click on the other end that said she had hung up. How like her not to say goodbye.

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He whiled away the hours he had to wait sitting in a café across the street from the train station. It hadn't been long after he left the phone booth that he realized exactly how hungry he was, so he spent some of his remaining cash on a sandwich and coffee. Thankfully the coffee had free refills. Apart from the benefit of food, the café provided him a view of the steady stream of traffic coming and going from the station.

At three o'clock he reluctantly paid his bill and left a generous tip for the waitress, then buried his face in the collar of his coat, shoved his hands deep in the pockets and stepped out into the bitter wind. It took just a few minutes to make his way back to the station platform where he had arrived less than twenty four hours ago. He waited on one of the benches inside the green building where tickets were purchased and children queued outside the bathrooms with runny noses. He settled down on the end of a bench, his suitcases at his feet. The building was relatively new, with floor to ceiling glass windows that gave you a full view of the station. It had only been there for a little less than ten years. It had been built the summer before he had come to live with the Hawkeye's at the age of eleven. The clock on the wall ticked by, the long hand seeming to slow with every second that passed.

He almost didn't see her when she arrived. He probably wouldn't have, if it weren't for the fact that the little boy standing in front of the windows facing the street burst into tears, causing him to look up. And he saw her. Head bowed, wearing narrow legged black pants and an unfamiliar grey coat, she was crossing the street. A group of people passed in front of her and she was momentarily blocked from his view. By the time the street had cleared, she was gone, and he was half afraid he had imagined her.

Then there was a soft tinkling as the door to the train station opened and he turned to see her standing there, pausing as though looking for him. It didn't take her long to locate him, and within moments she was standing in front of him, her hands shoved deep in her pockets, her cheeks flushed from the cold and her hair tousled by the brisk winter wind.

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The car ride into the foothills of the mountains where the old house resided was a long, quiet one. Neither one of them seemed entirely sure what to say, so they both remained silent. Snow began to fall, flakes peppering the windshield and obscuring the country side as thickly as fog in the morning. Windshield wipers clicked back and forth, brushing aside piles of soft snow that drifted outside of the semicircle they cleared.

Riza drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, fighting off the cold, flexing her fingers to keep them warm, her soft white fingernails shimmering in the reflected light.

She blew a wisp of fine blonde hair from her face, somehow managing to make it sound annoyed.

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the fabric of the grey coat she wore shifting with her.

"You said your father is sick?" he asked, forcing himself to look out the window and away from her. She sighed, a long, weary sound.

"Yes." She bit her lip and shot a sidelong glance at him, then turned her eyes back to the road, lowered beneath dark lashes that cast shadows over her pale skin.

"Is there anything that can be done?" he asked when she didn't offer anything further. It was a long moment before she answered, long enough that he didn't think she would.

"No. It's just a matter of time." Her voice was soft, catching a little. He looked over at her, the cause of the tension in her posture, the circles beneath her eyes suddenly clear. A shaft of light hit her face at the right angle and for a brief instant he saw her in another twenty years, her eyes weighted with a world of sadness that wasn't her own, calm and cool, all businesslike composure, blonde hair threaded with grey. Then he blinked and she was Riza again, much as he remembered her, just a shadow of the future in her face. At that moment he realized he would do anything to prevent her from becoming the woman he'd seen, to protect her.

She cast him a tentative smile when she caught him looking at her.

"It'll be all right," she said, an attempt to reassure him.

They both turned their eyes back to the windows, sighing in unison.

* * *

I'm not crazy about the end. I don't really thing it fits with the entire first part, but to be honest, once I'd finished the first part I had no idea where to go with it. So I figured I would finish it anyway, and go back to it if I came up with something I liked better.


End file.
